


And We Fled Across the Flooded Earth, Abandoning All Souls to Darkness

by evilever_green



Category: Supernatural
Genre: End of the World, Gen, If you only read one work by me, Post-Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Post-Season/Series 10 Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:51:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4636317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilever_green/pseuds/evilever_green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>
</p>
<h5>In which Sam and Dean meet their maker...</h5>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Delusions_of_Grandeur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delusions_of_Grandeur/gifts).



> Rated M for gore/disturbing scenes. Wincest if you squint. Potentially blasphemous.

They watch, transfixed, as the spreading Darkness inks out the sky. It rushes over them, allowing them a moment of blind, visceral terror before swallowing them whole.

※

The air's opaque, heavy with a suffocating humidity that makes Dean hack as it fills his lungs. It surges through his bloodstream, thick, coal-black, pounding against his eardrums, pricking into his fingertips, blurring his brain. Just as he thinks he's going to choke to death with the stuff down his throat, it starts to dissipate. Shapes ease back into view, rendering themselves in deepening shadows until their clarity appears surreal, infused with the lingering pollution.

Sam voices Dean's question. "That's it?"

Dean frowns, but says nothing. Using his eyes is like staring out of a filthy window—the dash, his hands, Sam's face—everything looks tainted. Very little has changed, except the color seems to have bled out of everything, leaving the world around him as data points, a set of disembodied sights.

"Maybe it's just _darkness_ , you know, like, makes it hard to see," Sam continues distractedly, waving a hand around to try and clear the haze out of the car.

"Yeah. Maybe if I smoke two packs a day I'll live long and prosper."

"Dean, look. I'm just saying, everything seems fine—"

"Yeah, well, nothings fine," he snaps, gunning the engine. Miraculously, he feels the back wheel lift out of the ditch. The car responds to the increased traction by lurching forward. And why couldn't this have happened five minutes earlier, before they got assaulted by creepy black smoke? His baby whines as he floors the gas pedal, but for once he can't bring himself to give a shit about the car. He just wants to get away from here _right fucking now_ _._ He feels so violated.

And Sam's twisted around in his seat, staring out the rear window. "Dean? did you just see...?"

"Huh?"

"No─nothing."

Oh, fantastic. Now he can see out the windows. Looks like Juanita's got leveled, despite the fact that the Impala doesn't have a scratch on her. That's not weird at all.

"Spit it out, Sam."

Sam clears his throat and turns to face forward, settling back against his seat like Dean's driving way more smoothly than he really is. "I guess it looked like the─ the _Darkness_ just helped us out. Like it lifted the back half of the car while your wheels were spinning."

Something cold trickles down his spine, and he grips the steering wheel hard to keep from shivering. "Not possible."

But Sam just keeps talking. "I dunno, Dean. I mean, aren't you always saying how angels are such dicks?"

Dean blinks. Weird as it feels speeding down some back road with a pall of Darkness still clinging to the atmosphere like an oily tinge—swimming, it feels like swimming through ashes—he can't figure out how adding a bunch of holy dickbags to this catastrophe will make it any better. "Yeah. And?"

"And Heaven's basically an asylum where you're trapped in your own nostalgia to─ to keep you docile. And _God_?" Sam's voice breaks into a whisper, so Dean has to strain to hear the rest. "God's doing an awfully good job of playing the absent father."

"Sam—"

"No, Dean, just─ just think about it for a second. A guy kills his brother, right?"

"You're talking about Cain?"

"Yes. Cain kills his brother, and God gives him a mark—a curse—to keep the Darkness at bay, for what? So He can carry out His plans uninterrupted? I mean, maybe He knew that─ that locking the Darkness away would enable His so-called 'forces of good' to screw around with humanity. Maybe He's like a giant kid with an ant farm and He left out of─ out of boredom, or something!"

Dean swallows, realizing he never told Sam how Cain killed Abel to send him to Heaven and save him from Lucifer's corruption—nor how, apparently, that corruption was a side-effect of Lucifer's bearing the Mark to begin with. He's so not looking forward to giving his brother a history lesson on this crap. "Sam, what's your point."

"My point is, we're assuming the Darkness is evil, but what if it's not?"

"Well, what else would it be?"

"Maybe it's neutral—who knows! I mean, compared to God... it might even be a benevolent force."

Dean just shakes his head. The whole damn thing smells foul. No way in Hell is this a benevolent force.

※


	2. Chapter 2

The first night falls darker than usual, promising nightmares.

They're sitting at a bar in Nebraska when Sam notices something different in the air. It's nothing concrete, nothing he can put his finger on. Well, he notices people seem a little on edge, a little unfriendly, but some towns welcome guests more warmly than others. No, it feels like everything's humming with radio static, infused with disquietude, as if people can't quite focus on routine matters because they sense a coming change.

He's witnessed this atmosphere before—before the first outbreak of the Croatoan virus, before the angels fell, before the Apocalypse.

Maybe his hunter's instincts make him sensitive to its electrical charge, or maybe it's Dean's presence. Because sure, people grow restless, but Dean can't sit still to save his life.

He watches his brother out of the corner of his eye. Dean keeps rubbing his arm where the Mark used to be. He casts his eyes down, but they rove sightlessly; he parts his lips a little, but no words form. Looks like he's barely holding it together.

So it's big. No surprise there — Rowena's loose, Crowley's different, Death's dead, and they don't really know the first thing about this 'Darkness.' Also, if history's any indication of what's to come, someone will try to punish them for choosing one another over the status quo... again. But the old rules still apply: they wait until a problem presents itself, then figure out how to deal with it. Those are Dean's rules.

They watch the Omaha fires on television. Weird fires, like people are rioting, setting things ablaze, only nobody's putting them out.

Sam drags his knuckles across his eyelids, asks the bartender if he's got anything stronger.

Dean bows his head.

It wears on Sam slowly. He realizes he's digging his short nails into his palms, clenching his teeth, tensing his back. Straining to hear something unusual in the clink of glasses, the scrape of the change drawer, the low murmur of voices. His original optimism is failing. He doesn't trust people, and suddenly feels remiss—like they should be secluding themselves until they know what's going on.

"Dean, come on. Time to leave."

Dean nods, follows him out. Doesn't look up.

Sam's not wrong. As they cross the parking lot behind the motel, a group of kids—seventeen, eighteen years old maybe—watch their progress. Watch Dean, specifically, following him with their eyes. Hair stands up on the back of Sam's neck because normal people don't _do_ that, they don't stare because it's rude or awkward, and preoccupied teenagers don't fall into silent absorption at the sight of a nondescript stranger.

Dean doesn't notice, keeps rubbing his arm like he's in a trance. Sam puts a hand between his shoulderblades, urging him to walk faster, half-expecting the kids to cackle or make some off-color joke about two men going into a motel room together. To his horror, they don't.

※

Dean turns on the news. Sam stands off to one side, not sure if he should watch the headlines or his brother—not sure which is more volatile at the moment. It's not that Sam doesn't want to know what's going on; he just isn't convinced that knowing will help. Especially not when Dean's quiet like this.

Addressing the microphone through a gas mask, the reporter says something about mysterious outbreaks of violence, possibly chemical warfare. Cut to footage: Darkness swoops over a line of people waiting for the bus, and a few of them just go nuts, attacking one another. There's blood. People fall. Within thirty seconds, two remain standing—a little girl and an old woman—providing a clear shot of the little girl grabbing the woman's handbag and swinging it, knocking the old lady over, then turning away. As she turns, her eyes look black for a second.

Dean must've noted it too—the resemblance between the Darkness in the girl's eyes and the black eyes that tell of demonic possession—because he starts back and breathes, "Holy shit."

Sam switches the television off. Dean finally looks at him.

"You call this a _benevolent force_?" he says slowly.

Sam swallows with a dry click. "Look, we don't know what it is, all right?"

Dean gets off the bed, approaches, voice still measured. "You shouldn't have done that." _You opened Pandora's box, man._

"Dean... I had no idea what was going to happen! I mean we still don't know what's going on here."

"We know it ain't good."

Sam sighs. "Anyway, I had to try and save you." _Since I never succeeded before._

"Yeah, well, you didn't have to do it like this. Dammit Sam, I fucking _told_ you that book was bad news!"

"Dean, just... calm down, okay? Rehashing this isn't going to solve anything!"

Dean goes on like he didn't hear him. "Do you realize that nothing we've _ever_ done matters anymore, since we just—"

He's cut off by the crack of gunfire outside the window.

"Get down!" Sam hisses. Dean's just staring numbly at the door, so Sam tackles him to the ground, pulling him behind the dresser. The gunfire intensifies, echoing across the lot—Sam guesses at least three fully-automatic weapons are being discharged—and Dean's trying to get to his feet like a moron.

"Dean, fucking... pull it together, man!"

"Shit's going down outside! You expect me to just sit here?"

"No but, Dean we're not bullet-proof! We'll check it out, all right? Just wait til they stop shooting!"

Dean's still fighting to get up. He worms out of Sam's grip for a moment, lurching forward, but Sam grabs him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and dragging him down again. Dean struggles against him but without the mark they're more evenly matched in a fight, and Sam's bigger. Eventually Dean goes limp in his arms. He slumps back against Sam's chest, gazing open-mouthed at the ceiling like he's been utterly defeated.

"You're evil," he mutters abstractly. Sam gets the feeling that he's not talking to anyone in particular.

※

Sam opens the door. He sees bodies strewn across the parking lot—half a dozen, riddled with bullet holes. Nothing moves. Sam shuts the door again.

Dean looks at him expectantly.

"Nothing left," he mumbles.

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn't say anything, but Sam hears it anyway. _This is not okay, Sam, and it's never going to be okay._

After a long silence, he says quietly, "I don't know how to fix this."

Sam nods. There's nothing he can say to make it better, so he doesn't.

Dean holds his eyes for moment, then winces and drops his gaze. "Guess I kinda fucked up your face," he says, voice deliberately casual.

Sam gives a hollow laugh. "Yeah, where's Cas when you need him."

Dean's eyes widen, and he's staring at something Sam can't see.

"Oh God, Cas— Sammy the last time I saw him I─"

Yeah, Sam knows. "Dean I'm sure he's fine. I mean I talked to him after... He's good." Sam nods, trying for a reassuring smile.

Dean shuts his eyes, clenching his hands into fists.

Sam snorts. "You wanna hit me? Fine. Just don't blame yourself for this, okay? It's... you were trying to do the right thing."

Dean blinks. Then his eyes fill with tears.

"Sammy, I think we destroyed the world."

He looks so damn sad that Sam goes to stand by him, pulls him into a hug. Then he's shaking, and Sam's trying to pull back to get a look at his face, but Dean won't let him.

"Dean?"

"Shut up! Just, shut up Sam. God, I hate you so much," he adds, pressing a wet cheek against Sam's neck.

Sam just holds him, spouting nonsense like "I know," "Ssh," and "It's okay..." until all his shakes pool in his knees and he can't stand up anymore, and Sam half-carries him to the bed where he collapses without even removing his boots.

※

Around midnight, the noise starts. The shrieks, the shattering glass, the bloodcurdling screams that suddenly fall silent.

Startled awake, Sam sits bolt upright before realizing the sounds are outside paper-thin walls rather than in the room with them. He looks over at Dean. Dean's lying on his back, but stiffly—all his muscles appear to be clenched—and he's staring at the ceiling. Sam reads the blank horror on his face and goes to him, lies down next to him like they're kids and pulls Dean close. Dean turns away a bit, but doesn't respond otherwise.

Sam knows what he's thinking before Dean says it: "I did this."

"Dean—"

"No, you don't get it," Dean starts, voice too loud, "I destroyed the fucking world, Sam, there's—"

That's all he gets out before Sam claps a hand over his mouth, whispering a warning of "Keep your voice down" in his ear, grabbing his shoulder roughly as if trying to get his attention though Dean's already staring straight into his eyes.

When he removes his hand, Dean continues as if he hadn't felt Sam there at all. "God, what the fuck have I done," he murmurs, like he made the wrong choice.

 _Better than an eternity in solitary confinement after killing your_ _brother_ , Sam thinks bitterly, because how was that ever a good idea? Then Dean's trying to get up, like there's anything they can do about it now.

"Sleep," Sam says against his brother's ear, trying to sound commanding without drawing attention to their sanctuary. Who knows how long they have until something busts in? Besides, he doubts Dean's slept much in the past year or so... not like the Mark ever let him.

Dean hesitates.

"Ssh, come on, sleep," he coaxes, pressing on Dean's chest until he's lying back again.

For once, Dean listens.

※


	3. Chapter 3

On the second day, the sun doesn't come out at all.

Someone cleared the bodies from the parking lot. If it weren't for the dark stains littering the asphalt, Sam might chalk the previous night's horrors up to some stupid nightmare and dismiss the dread that settles over him like the blanket of grey drawn over the sky.

As it is, his reminder lurks in the overcast heavens. He needs only look up.

They're out of food and low on salt, bullets, and clean clothing, so they're walking through town. The streets are empty, but they can see people inside buildings. Most storefronts have illuminated their neon signs reading "OPEN."

Not like it's some big cataclysmic disaster.

Dean snags the elbow of his jacket, nodding to a greasy spoon across the road. Sam falls in step alongside him, then stops in his tracks, noticing the haze that's settled over the building. They watch the Darkness bleed through the bricks.

"Dean, come on, let's just keep walking."

Dean holds up a hand, ignoring Sam's pleas.

The dread rises, swelling to fill his abdomen. "No..." he mumbles weakly.

"All right, well you don't have to come. Just give me a minute."

The dread lurches up further, pressing heavy against his lungs. Sam follows his brother across the street.

※

As the door creaks open, Dean's hand goes to his belt, thumbing the safety off his pistol. The place is hazy, poorly lit, and—

"Hi, welcome to Linda's!" a voice sings out. A young blonde woman in a yellow apron's pouring coffee. She seems... out of place. Dean releases his gun quickly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sit anywhere you'd like! I'll be with you in just a minute!" the waitress says cheerfully.

A woman looks up from stirring cream into her coffee. Her eyes linger on Dean. Dean gives her a shy half-smile, then pulls Sam over to the bar. Sam narrows his eyes.

He slides his knees under the low bar, intentionally sitting between Dean and the woman. Apart from them, there are two other customers (the woman beside him and a man to Dean's left) the waitress, and a hooded figure in the kitchen, presumably the cook. Sam doesn't know why the guy's covering his face, but he's betting that hoodie violates several health codes.

Besides the mysterious cook, the emptiness of the place, and the quiet, it's just too _dark._ That doesn't seem right.

Dean's giving him this sidelong look.

Sam frowns back, trying to communicate nonverbally. _What are we doing here? Can we leave yet?_

Dean lifts his eyebrows. _No, fuck you Sam, just let me investigate this creepy diner in peace already._

Sam glowers.

※

They order food like everything's completely normal, and Dean fidgets with his lighter, flicking it on and off. At least he's not rubbing his arm.

Speaking of rubbing, Sam jerks his leg away from the woman sitting next to him, hoping the suddenness of his motion gets her attention this time, since she clearly doesn't understand the concept of personal space. Dean glances at him, then starts absently tapping his lighter against the bar.

"Whoa, okay, too close," Sam says as she rakes her nails across his knee. The man by Dean leans back to gawk at them. Sam feels a little guilty for causing a scene, but then she smirks. Sam edges away, bumping his shoulder against his brother's. Dean shoots him a dirty look, but it carries no heat. Or maybe he's seeing malice, obscured by the pervading dimness that presses against Sam's eyes like an itch he can't scratch.

Sam clenches his teeth and narrows his eyes at his coffee.

"Order up!" The hooded man calls from the kitchen.

Suddenly the black fog intensifies, swarming over their heads before descending to obscure everything. Sam's eyes dart around but he can't see shit. Realizing his fingers have twisted in the fabric of Dean's jacket, he jumps up, knocking over the barstool, trying to pull Dean towards the exit.

But the waitress screams from the back room and Dean's either heroic or suicidal, so Sam tightens his grip on Dean's clothes and allows himself to be pulled into the darkness.

"Hey lady... Linda? Are you hurt?" Dean calls, the edge in his voice betraying his uncertainty.

She whimpers and Dean crouches down where the sound's coming from. Sam kneels beside him and reaches blindly forward, feeling knotted floorboards. His fingers light on something small and wiry, and he yelps, pulling his hand back as the thing squeaks and scurries off between his legs.

"Fuck," he breathes, startled, holding his hand to his chest for a moment before feeling around again. He stubs his fingers into the corner of the room—empty, so where's the waitress?—and the sickening feeling that Dean's not next to him any longer, that he's alone in the darkness, washes over him.

He blinks hard and finds he can make out Dean's outline, like it's being rendered from dust. Dean's rough hands grab his shirt and pull him forward. He says, "Sam," to himself, like it's a fact, and lets go.

Sam sits down hard on his ass. His head's swimming with the cloud of smog they're bathed in and despite the confused voices floating around them, he can't help but feel a little hurt because the way Dean said his name sounded so... dismissive.

But he's felt pretty powerless on that front lately, so he pushes the thought from his brain, squinting into the darkness instead, focusing on _sight._

Presently he finds the haze dissipates enough that he can discern figures across the room, and one figure in the center of it, facing away from Sam and Dean, arms outstretched as if to protect them. As his form becomes more distinct, Sam sees the Darkness hovering about behind his head like a halo of steam, distorting the images beyond it. The cook holds a knife that looks like an old, hand-pounded dagger.

He moves fast. Sam's only just gotten to his feet, thinking to carefully disarm the guy, when he lunges forward and sinks his blade into the blonde woman's throat. Sam throws caution to the wind and wraps his arms around the guy's neck, dragging him backwards. Dean grabs his knife arm, trying to wrestle the blade away, but the guy seems juiced up on all that Darkness spilling out of him. He throws Dean to the floor with a halfhearted shake and, ignoring Sam as if he were a scarf instead of an extra-large hunter straining to hold him in place, starts in on the two customers where they cower between tables against the far wall.

"Go! Get out of here!" Dean barks at the pair, then kicks his leg out, upsetting the cook's balance and throwing him and Sam sideways. The two onlookers escape as Sam rocks his center of gravity forward, taking the man down. His own skull cracks against the floorboards and he rolls onto his back, dazed. The hooded man looms over him, still radiating Darkness.

A smaller figure with spiky hair and hunched shoulders charges at the cook, leaping nimbly over Sam's outstretched arm. The cook throws Dean off again, more forcefully this time. A shock of cold jags through Sam's chest when he glimpses his brother lying crumpled in the far corner.

The cook grins down at Sam, tilting his head to one side as if expecting something from him. Sam feels the cook's need like a question demanding response, but he can't imagine what the fuck he's supposed to give the guy. He pushes himself up on both elbows, ready to scramble away from those unhinged eyes, those bared teeth, that Darkness that spreads from his back like wings.

He hears the report of Dean's pistol once, twice. Though it's hard to tell where Dean hit him in the low light, it looks like the shots connected since the cook staggers back, drops to his knees. His focus doesn't waver from Sam, though, and he grabs Sam's collar as he falls to the floor by Sam's head. He lifts his knife with a trembling arm.

Sam hears Dean bellowing his name, but he's mesmerized by the light in the man's eyes as his hood falls away. Even as the man points his blade at him, Sam feels this visceral _connection_ between them. The cook's eyes widen.

"Things work just as well in reverse," he says, clutching the blade so hard that blood drips from his fist. He smiles hysterically, then plunges the handle into his own chest, gargling faintly as his lungs fill with blood. He twitches, then lies still.

The blackness oozes out from between the slats of the back room, dissipating again into the atmosphere where it hangs like a dark shroud over everything.

Their eyes meet. Dean grabs a fistful of Sam's shirt and he's slamming him into the wall, demanding, "What's wrong with us?"

Sam winces at the impact on his unhealed bruises. "We've had too many fistfights lately?" he offers with an exhausted shrug.

"That same cloud of black shit was─ dude Sam it was in our hair and our─ our _mouths_! and everywhere it goes it screws everything all to Hell, so what the fuck is wrong with _us_?"

Sam considers this. They do seem uniquely unaffected, but he doesn't say that because he knows Dean's looking for something more concrete. "Maybe we were just... fucked up to begin with?"

Dean releases him and paces the room, rubbing his hands over his face. "Yeah. You know, you're right." He gives a humorless laugh, then shakes his head. "We are so screwed."

"Tell me about it. By the way, next time I say let's keep walking, uh, let's keep walking."

"Okay. Yeah. Next time." Dean's looking through Sam at something far away.

Sam tries to bring him back to earth by suggesting he take the lead — he's good at that. "Alright, so what's our next move?"

Unfortunately, Dean just spreads his hands, palms up. "Beats me." Then he adds in a low voice, more to himself than to Sam, "I guess this is when the magic starts."

Sam gulps, biting his tongue again as he thinks of Rowena. Dean doesn't know about _that_ yet.

She sighs, letting her fiery tresses fall over one eye as she regards Sam in mock dismay. _You know, it_ is _a wee bit harder, channeling chaos when the world's already—_ she pauses, relishing the last word— _unraveling_. _But I'll make do,_ she says with a sly smile. And with that, she waltzes out of Sam's imagination, cradling the Book of the Damned in her arms like a baby.

※


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not posting chapters in order because I'm not done with all of them yet. I guess you may want to hold off on reading ahead, since it might not make sense. Sorry, I just need to clear my workspace (I've tens of thousands of words of unfinished work in this fandom alone, and most of it is going in the bin if I can't get it organized so, yeah, lol)
> 
> This is chapter 5

On the fourth day, Dean cracks a smile.

It's Tuesday. They're sitting on top of a gas station—well, what's left of it—to avoid surprise attacks. Inside they found artery-clogging, non-perishable food and semi-cold beer, which they share. Surveying the flat stretch of land around them, they can see evidence of recent carnage in every direction.

"Nice view," Sam says dryly.

"Oh yeah. Beautiful."

"At least it's not raining."

"That'd make getting down from here even more of a bitch," Dean agrees. He'd rolled his eyes in humiliation earlier—when Sam had to help him climb to the roof—swearing under his breath that he'd 'just fucking jump next time.'

Sam looks at his injured leg, realizing it must be pretty swollen—they haven't showered in days, and his stab wound's probably infected, hence why he couldn't scale a five-foot ledge by himself, yelped in pain when he tried to pull his pants on, and let Sam drive. Sam decides to track down some stronger antibiotics.

 _A wound infection could kill him,_ he thinks, gritting his teeth against the fear squirming in his gut. He should be used to Dean almost-dying by now, but it always reminds him of Asia and _Tuesdays_ —God, he could go his whole life without another Tuesday—and, well... he panics.

Sam's trying not to think of Metatron (doesn't need his blood boiling right now) when Dean smiles out of the blue. It's brilliant, full of fondness, vanishing as suddenly as it appears.

Sam nudges his brother. "So?"

"So what?"

He grins despite himself. "Come on, Dean, I haven't seen you smile for ages. So... what gives?"

"Honestly? It's the damnedest thing. I mean, I fucking grim-reapered Death for─ for threatening you. And you know, I actually liked that emaciated screwhead..."

Sam keeps his face carefully composed.

"What? Guy had style."

"I didn't say anything."

"...still, if shit gets too bad around here, I'll probably kill you myself." He glances at Sam, then looks away quickly. "Fair warning."

Sam recalls Dean's tendency to avoid him whenever his proximity endangers Sam's life. _It's a nice_ _gesture_ , Sam thinks, _trying to spare me from this shithole we've created_. But Dean going through with it? without that symbol of murder—Hell, of the original fratricide—burned into his arm? not happening.

He nods anyway. "Sounds good."

"Yeah. Well I... don't want anyone else to do it."

Sam wasn't expecting _that_. So his bossy older brother wants some sort of final authority over his fate. He snorts, trying to ignore the rare warmth swelling in his chest. Dammit, it really _should_ annoy him. But he likes it.

"Me neither," he says honestly.

※


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not posting chapters in order because I'm not done with all of them yet. I guess you may want to hold off on reading ahead, since it might not make sense. Sorry, I just need to clear my workspace (I've tens of thousands of words of unfinished work in this fandom alone, and most of it is going in the bin if I can't get it organized so, yeah, lol)
> 
> This is chapter 6

On the fifth day, Iowa starts to look a lot like Hell.

They don't talk about it. They never really discussed Hell, but they both spent longer Down Below than on earth so the fifth day... well, it dawns with noxious familiarity.

Dean wakes from a dream of the purest white light, dread curdling in his stomach as reality seeps in. He blinks, trying to rid himself of the odd sense of delirium leftover from that dream, and surveys his surroundings.

They slept on the roof of Biggerson's, behind a humming utility box. The roof stretches beyond the box, flat and drab, but mostly unsullied, to his left. To his right, a short ledge blocks the street from view. Above this, the steeple of a church rises to greet the dim grey sky, where the Darkness churns over its domain. The wind moans as if lamenting its immortality.

He feels like they slept a long time, though it's hard to determine the sun's position through the roiling Darkness. He thinks it might be afternoon. Time to move on, at any rate. Maintain the illusion of progress. He knows if they stay in one place too long the Darkness will smother their rationality, leaving only despair.

Anyway, they shouldn't waste the precious hours of quiet daylight. Not since everything goes apeshit at night.

He reaches down to slap the large bundle of flannel huddled by his side. "Up and at 'em, Sasquatch."

The bundle ignores him. Petulant yeti.

He leans back against his duffel bag, staring up at that wreck of sky. Then he shakes Sam more urgently. "Sammy, c'mon. Time to leave."

Sam sits up, rubbing his eyes, and Dean's never been so happy to see a human face. Sam's hair flops over his cheek, almost obscuring the yellow bruises, the long cut under his eye—souvenirs from Dean's fist. Now Dean uses that same hand to muss Sam's sleep-rumpled hair.

Sam leans into his touch for a moment, then pushes his hand away. "How're you feeling?"

"Fine," Dean grunts, not sure why Sam's making small talk until he tries to sit up. A wave of nausea hits him, forcing him to lie back immediately. _Oh._ He realizes vaguely that all his limbs ache and his vision's swimming like the sky.

Sam's hand feels cool against his forehead. "You have a fever," he says seriously.

"Awesome." He tries to reiterate how absolutely fine he is, but Sam's pressing a water bottle against his lips and he drinks gratefully instead. Then Sam's touching his injured leg and he jerks away, shocked by the soreness of it. Turns out, jerking away's not the best idea. He cries out as his jeans compress his inflamed thigh.

"Whoa, easy, easy..." Sam's pushing him back against the duffel and carefully straightening Dean's leg, manipulating it so the pressure's reduced slightly. Dean chuckles at the absurd thought that one of his legs is too fat to fit into his pants, and the other doesn't have the same problem.

Keeping a firm hold on his knee, Sam extracts the first-aid kit from the bag under Dean's head, cooing some brand of soothing nonsense as he works. Whatever crap he's saying serves its purpose, because Dean's lying back and closing his eyes until he feels the blunt edge of scissors against the outside of his leg.

"Shit, Sam, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Your pants are cutting off circulation. It'll kill your tissue."

"Let me just take them off then!"

Sam shoots him a look that says _trust me, you don't want to try that_. He settles back again, surrendering to Nurse Samantha's Prissy Demands.

"I'm gonna look like Bieber," he mourns, trying to ignore the crusty way his pants stick to his wound.

Sam grins evilly. "Don't be retarded; I'm sure if he cuts off his jeans he does it to both legs."

Which, of course, makes it _so much_ better. Dean glares up at him. "You fucking bitch."

Sam smiles and gives his calf a little squeeze, which Dean doesn't feel the way he probably should — he wonders how it's possible for pain to shoot up his leg while it simultaneously goes numb. He catches a glimpse of his own spongy, mottled flesh and a fresh wave of nausea makes him look elsewhere.

"Perv... stop staring," he manages through gritted teeth.

Sam doesn't laugh. "Dean, you've got to let me take care of this."

He's happy to drink from the hip flask, but hesitates when Sam removes his belt, eyeing it warily. Eventually he nods because Sam looks so earnest, concerned and exhausted. Sam pushes the belt unceremoniously between his teeth.

"'At vad, huh?" he says, belatedly, around the belt.

Sam gives him a look like it's hurting him too, and says, "Hold still."

※

Everything aches, including his pride, when Sam finally tapes a few large squares of clean gauze to his leg and wraps the whole thing in flannel. But, he reasons, Sam was concentrating too hard to notice how he broke a sweat and dug his other heel into the ground. He honestly can't recall the last time physical pain brought tears to his eyes. He thinks he might've bitten through Sam's belt too, but Sam doesn't examine it before putting it back on. Instead he says something about antibiotics, and gets up to leave.

"Wait." Dean reaches after him, hating himself.

"I'll be back, okay?"

"No, Sam—" he stops short of saying _don't leave me here alone_ , but the look Sam gives him says he heard it anyway. "I'm coming," he says resolutely. "Someone's gotta keep your ass out of trouble."

Sam nods in resignation, helping him stand. He squeezes his eyes shut, unable to witness the way Sam has to carry him down from the roof.

They limp to the parking lot, only to find that the Impala's just gone. Her shredded tire, a scrap of buckled metal (probably from her hood), a few strips of leather upholstery soaked in something dark, and a shattered side mirror suggest she wasn't hijacked and driven away by anything sane. Dean's only half-glad he followed Sam's suggestion to sleep on the roof. He'd wanted to sleep in the car.

They trudge through downtown Des Moines—eerily quiet save the occasional horrified yell drifting out from the belly of a darkened building—trying to ignore the stained sidewalk, sometimes stepping over chunks of flesh and matted hair. Dean's stomach churns unpleasantly at the thought of stopping anywhere, seeing how everything's so splattered with human remains. His leg's killing him, but he scowls at his brother every time he offers an arm to lean on. Damned if he's gonna accept help walking when he can stumble along all right on his own.

They press on towards a tall building that _probably_ used to be a hospital, slow progress unimpeded for the first six blocks. Then they hear a groaning, shuffling thing approaching from behind. Sam whirls around immediately, but, hearing the thick drag of flesh over pavement, Dean has to swallow nausea before he can chance a look behind him.

When he sees the mutilated creature, his blood runs cold. It's now a grated pulp, supported by an arm, two partial legs, and a mass of dangling intestines, but he _recognizes_ it.

Sam does too. He levels a semi-automatic at what's left of intestine-dude.

Dean croaks, "Sammy, hold up."

Sam purses his lips, but lowers the gun. The creature keeps advancing with its jerking crawl, its single remaining eye fixed on Dean. When it's several yards away, it pauses to draw a six-shooter from its gut, shaking hand unsticking it from a mass of intestines.

Dean recoils in disgust, but he's not prepared to take this display of aggression seriously.

Before Dean has time to say _Come on, dude,_ Sam's blown a hole in its wrist. It drops the gun and makes to pick it up again with trembling fingers.

"Leave it," Sam warns. It keeps fumbling with the gun. Sam cringes, watching it, but when its aiming the gun at Dean again, Sam puts a bullet through its remaining eye.

It falls with a sickening thud and lies there, gurgling. Sam fires twice more into its skull, trying to put it out of its misery, but like the other zombies, it simply won't die. So Sam pulls out a machete and decapitates it with a few wet thwacks. It stops making sounds, but its eyes keep rolling around in its head. Sam regards it with a mixture of revulsion and pity.

Dean _definitely_ wants to puke now. And Sam's glancing at him, confused, wondering if they should just leave it like that. As if Dean knows.

At Sam's feet, the creature's limbs twitch erratically like it wants to attack him but can't collect itself enough to do so. Dean realizes that the thing must've followed them somehow, like it had purpose. Like it could _think_.

As he puts two and two together, he finds himself leaning against a blood-splattered wall for support. He turns his face against the cooled gore, trying to control his retching, unable to attend to whatever Sam's saying behind him.

Since he destroyed Death, nobody's dying. So the corpses staggering around them? they're not lifeless zombies. They're souls, mired in endless torture.

Just like in Hell.

※


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter that I meant to post yesterday. 
> 
> This is chapter 7 (though I'll probably add more to it since it was originally ~3x as long)
> 
>  
> 
> I keep overwriting my own work, so I finish a chapter and then it's gone. Composing in like, Word instead of on my phone might help but I never fix the problem, urgh. Epitome of laziness=makes extra work for self

As the Darkness mounts its pulsing oppression from above, less and less sunlight penetrates the sable sky. Each day dawns more choked with shadows.

Sam sits on the window ledge, cleaning their guns. His fingers still. He presses his forehead against the cool glass, watching that mesmerizing sky, grief and excitement twisting together in his gut. With most of the lights off, he can discern the the Darkness' incessant motion—first spreading, then rolling in on itself, then dripping down to sully the world with its nightly chaos. He scans the horizon for any indication of morning. Light calms the violence on the streets below. Light means they can leave.

But considering how much yesterday's noon looked like dusk, he wonders if the sun will rise at all.

The hospital, "Mercy," has turned out to be a death trap—all long corridors and dark wards. Sam didn't know what to expect, but they found it mostly empty... just not empty enough.

Around 01:00, Sam woke up to give Dean his second dose of antibiotics and found him confused. Dean's loud analysis of _colors_ brought company from the stairwell. The report of Sam's pistol echoing off dozens of hard surfaces prompted him to rush a delirious Dean away to avoid further encounters with the undead.

With the help of antibiotics, ibuprofen, and a cold shower, Dean's fever dropped below 100°F, and he came to his senses, complaining and fidgeting with the gurney before drifting off again, hardly stirring as Sam took out more zombies.

Sam doesn't have the heart to wake his brother when he sleeps like that, so he stands watch, waiting for dawn, listening for the unsteady drag of feet in the hallway.

What he hears is a croak from the darkest corner of the room.

"Sammy."

He nearly shoots himself in the foot hastening to his brother's side, but Dean's already out of bed. He leans on an IV pump for support, testing his leg, then plucking at his scrub pants and wrinkling his nose.

"I uh. Thought you looked butch in cutoffs." _They'll keep your bandage clean, idiot._

Dean's just staring at him. "Sam, you're a genius."

Sam's tempted to check his temperature. "What?"

"Doctors have nice cars, right?"

Sam narrows his eyes. Dean grins.

※


End file.
